After my experience on Friday, I may have to take some of that gusto back.

First, against my inner-voice telling me that the group was going to be bad, I joined a Christian Social Group. As I’ve mentioned in past posts, I’ve been wavering about getting back into church and figured a social group would be a good way to see if I should progress further.

My inner-voice is usually right 98% of the time, but I ignore it just in case this might be one of the 2% of the times that its wrong.

My inner voice was telling me that the group was going to be lame mainly on the fact that the organizer seemed weird. Now don’t get me wrong. I love weird, just not this kind of weird. I’d seen her post a few times from other groups and had seen enough of her around online that I just knew in my gut that she was not “my people”.

In her defense, Tina’s a really nice person. Clean and dresses relatively appropriately for her figure. She’s not overly fancy, but down to earth and seems to care about everyone. As a person, she’s probably a lot closer to Mother Theresa than I’ll ever get.

That said.

She seems a little socially awkward and not very bright. Her friends that came to the group were people in need of psycho-wards and showers. Tina was wearing a tshirt, jeans, and white tennis shoes for a night out, which looked like she’d purchased all of them at Wal-Mart. And while her body was not at all her fault, it added to the pile as her torso was sized right for a person about 5’6, but her arms and legs were several inches shorter than would be proportional. She also calls it a night at 10pm.

When I first arrived, it was her and I plus 3 guys. I knew instantly from looking at her that we weren’t going to be best buds, but she seemed ok. Of the three guys, two were interesting, and one was a little old but seemed nice. So out of courtesy I stayed for a while. (As it turned out this group meeting was a regular secular social group and the Christian group.. so not exactly what I was looking to find anyway.)

Then other people started joining us. A very good looking older woman, Rena joined us. Then a woman I’ve met before and found annoying (she’s nice, dressed well, but annoys me for a reason I can’t place). Then another girl joined us who was younger, extremely pretty – even I would be tempted to do her – and very funny.

Then Tina’s friends started showing up. The first one that came was probably a great girl, she sat at the other end of the table from me so I can’t say, but she walked in looking like she’d just come from the gym or a very active romp in the sack. No makeup, hair completely a mess, and gym clothes.

The second friend .. was.. well.. WOW. Seriously WOW, but I’ll try to break it down better for you. She also had no makeup and gym-type clothes on with jeans. She was fat in the ways that they make fun of fat people with fat suits kind of fat. She had hanging jowls, a drooping chin that ran into her neck with little to no division. Her body actually had little structure (if she exercised at all I’ll be shocked) and her flesh just seemed to hang in lumps. Her hair looked like she hadn’t washed it in days, and she kinda smelled that way as well.

And then she talked.

I was sitting next to one of the guys, Alan, and she was on my other side. He and I had been having quite a good conversation, and she had just arrived. We were talking about driving skills and the different places you drove in and the skills needed for successful driving in those areas. IE.. differences between driving in Chicago vs Austin vs NY vs midwest. She wanted to join in and asked Alan if he thought it was a gender thing being able to drive.. if because she’s a woman that she’s a bad and timid driver.

She said this question in a whiny woah-is-me voice that not only had the question offended me but the voice in which she said it made me want to slap her silly and tell her to grow some balls. But I didn’t. I played nice. 🙂

Alan and I agreed that it had little to do with gender. Alan and I had just finished discussing how where you learned to drive tended more to dictate the way you drove, and just dragged that theme a little further to answer her question. Alan and I both learned to drive in a small town with little fear of traffic. She had learned to drive in large city California. So we nicely told her that it was probably the fear of the vast amounts of traffic that gave her that mindset.

She instead went on about how timid she was, and fearful of driving, how slow she drove, and OH how fast other people went.. and Oh how she’d love to just get over her fears.. And how her mother was the same way, and Oh how she decided not to be like her mother.. blah blah whiny wine blah

Alan and I were both looking for ways to exit the conversation, alas no nice ways availed themselves. So Alan turned to his other side as if he’d gotten engaged in a vastly interesting conversation there, and left me to talk to her. Thanks ALAN!

It took nearly every ounce of remaining social grace inside me not to turn to her and shove my foot up her ass and tell her to grow a pair.

Thankfully she saw Mr Hot Guy walk in a few minutes before. He sat at the far end of the table from me, so I didn’t get to talk to him much. She made the excuse that she hadn’t met that side of the table yet, and there was an empty seat over there so she went to sit over there and introduce herself. I was so relieved that she was gone that I barely took time to feel sorry for Mr Hot Guy.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. People one by one were leaving, and at the end of the evening it was Alan and I with Rena, the annoying girl, the whiney girl, bedhead girl, and Tina.

I put on my best excited voice and said “Lets move the party somewhere else. Maybe get a drink somewhere nearby?”

I was hoping that Alan, Rena, and I could ditch the rest of them. Alan however was calling it a night (he btw looks and acts almost exactly like Alan Harper off of Two and a Half Men). That pretty much dampened my spirits of wanting to go out, and when I let my energy die the rest of the group said it was best to call it a night.

We all walked out together, and I pulled Rena aside and asked if she was up for going anywhere else. She was.

We talked a bit and went to karaoke. By this time of the evening, after having had to hold my tongue the entire night amongst people I was extremely uncomfortable with.. I could no longer hold back. I went full catty bitch on our previous company. Rena almost peed her pants laughing at humorous account of the previous events. She said she couldn’t have agreed more. We were fast friends.

She’s exactly 10 yrs older than me, and definitely what you’d consider a cougar. As much as I don’t like that term, she fits it to a tee. But she’s fun and funny and gets my humor. I am a little concerned though. We saw a couple young men with their girlfriends. Young men who looked borderline 18-21, and thus too young for me. She remarked that one of them was hot and she could just eat him up. She’s a High School teacher. So … umm.. yeah.